Oil Found in Jamaica

Interesting article

By Andre Eggelletion

The first petro-geological profiles of Jamaican territories were conducted in 1955 and 1973, and according to the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, again in 1981, and 1983. What did they conclude? According to the Journal of Petroleum Geology, eleven wells were drilled in Jamaican territory over a 27–year period commencing in 1955: all were abandoned as dry. These combined results would suggest that conditions did not favor the generation, accumulation and preservation of petroleum in Jamaica. Twenty six years later in 2009, another profile was conducted, and this time, they found oil.

According to Oil Voice:

Gippsland Offshore Petroleum is a 50% equity partner in the Jamaica Joint Venture (JJV) that has 5 exploration permits over 14,500km2 of frontier exploration acreage offshore Jamaica over the majority of the Walton Basin…

The area was of great interest to the Company as it had been ignored for twenty years by the exploration community. However, of the 11 wells that had been drilled in and around the basin, 10 of them had oil shows proving a working hydrocarbon generating system. The presence of oil and gas seeps both onshore and offshore adds strength to this case. The last well was drilled in 1978 and the old seismic data was poor…
Gippsland Offshore has been leading the geological and geophysical data interpretation and prospect mapping on behalf of the JJV. The JJV has established that the WaltonBasin has potential to house multi million barrel oil and gas fields. The combination of the AGG and 2D seismic has been effective in producing a 3D geological model of the basin and fast-tracking the understanding of the structural framework of the basin. To date, seven prospects have been mapped with upside potential for greater than 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

I can only imagine what this discovery will mean to Jamaica. The discovery of this oil should mean an end to Jamaica’s sovereign debt burdens, but given the history of how things of this nature are usually resolved; I’m not so sure that it will. To illustrate the worst case scenario, a couple of articles floating around the web paint the picture of a truly nightmarish geo-political challenge facing the Jamaican people. One of these articles; “Dudus: It’s not about Cocaine, It’s about Oil” speculates about a possible destabilization campaign to allow foreign financial interests to gain control of the newly discovered oil. Another piece called “Jamaican Oil: It’s Worse than You Know” tells us: “The reality of the oil situation in theCaribbean is probably much worse than originally considered. If you have paranoid eyes, it appears as though the International Monetary Fund re-invented itself in 2008 to specifically target ownership and control of all of the oil under the Gulf of Mexico, not just Jamaica, and that they have been actively working towards that goal ever since. This is not just American pirates stealing from Jamaica again, this is the G20 putting together an entirely new structure designed to steal all of the oil in what might be the largest deposit ever discovered, under some of the poorest countries on the planet.”

Andre Eggelletion is the host of “Andre in the Morning with the Real Deal” soon to be offered in syndication in USTalkNetwork.com

The first petro-geological profiles of Jamaican territories were conducted in 1955 and 1973, and according to the Geological Society of Trinidad and Tobago, again in 1981, and 1983. What did they conclude? According to the Journal of Petroleum Geology, eleven wells were drilled in Jamaican territory over a 27–year period commencing in 1955: all were abandoned as dry. These combined results would suggest that conditions did not favor the generation, accumulation and preservation of petroleum in Jamaica. Twenty six years later in 2009, another profile was conducted, and this time, they found oil.

According to Oil Voice:

Gippsland Offshore Petroleum is a 50% equity partner in the Jamaica Joint Venture (JJV) that has 5 exploration permits over 14,500km2 of frontier exploration acreage offshore Jamaica over the majority of the Walton Basin…

The area was of great interest to the Company as it had been ignored for twenty years by the exploration community. However, of the 11 wells that had been drilled in and around the basin, 10 of them had oil shows proving a working hydrocarbon generating system. The presence of oil and gas seeps both onshore and offshore adds strength to this case. The last well was drilled in 1978 and the old seismic data was poor…
Gippsland Offshore has been leading the geological and geophysical data interpretation and prospect mapping on behalf of the JJV. The JJV has established that the WaltonBasin has potential to house multi million barrel oil and gas fields. The combination of the AGG and 2D seismic has been effective in producing a 3D geological model of the basin and fast-tracking the understanding of the structural framework of the basin. To date, seven prospects have been mapped with upside potential for greater than 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

I can only imagine what this discovery will mean to Jamaica. The discovery of this oil should mean an end to Jamaica’s sovereign debt burdens, but given the history of how things of this nature are usually resolved; I’m not so sure that it will. To illustrate the worst case scenario, a couple of articles floating around the web paint the picture of a truly nightmarish geo-political challenge facing the Jamaican people. One of these articles; “Dudus: It’s not about Cocaine, It’s about Oil” speculates about a possible destabilization campaign to allow foreign financial interests to gain control of the newly discovered oil. Another piece called “Jamaican Oil: It’s Worse than You Know” tells us: “The reality of the oil situation in theCaribbean is probably much worse than originally considered. If you have paranoid eyes, it appears as though the International Monetary Fund re-invented itself in 2008 to specifically target ownership and control of all of the oil under the Gulf of Mexico, not just Jamaica, and that they have been actively working towards that goal ever since. This is not just American pirates stealing from Jamaica again, this is the G20 putting together an entirely new structure designed to steal all of the oil in what might be the largest deposit ever discovered, under some of the poorest countries on the planet.”

Andre Eggelletion is the host of “Andre in the Morning with the Real Deal” soon to be offered in syndication in USTalkNetwork.com